|
Page 1
For the last nearly forty years, Kashmir Valley is under terror, shedding tears and facing trauma. A handful of separatists in the minisicule Valley under the command of Intelligence Agency of a neighbouring country, have been holding by neck the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir. The motivation is pan-Islamism and the instrument is Jihad, which has a wide connotation. Kashmir is regretably the only perfect model of apartheid in the Indian Ropublic. The apartheid is manifest in the tortuous treatment and forced exile of the little group of tiny community of original natives of the land professing a faith different from that of the overwhelming majority.
The people in the vast regions of Ladakh and Jammu are very eager to come closer to the rest of the country and share its sorrows and happiness as members of the same family. These regions are neither involved in present terrorism in the vlley nor hve they any consideration for the sinister objectives of the separatists. Indeed they are vehemently opposed to it. These two regions have nevertheless their own aspirations, expectations, loyalties and, of course, problems and with that their understandable disappointments. Ladakh has been clamouring for being taken over as a Centrally-administered Union territory. In Jammu, the intensity of the feelings of the people for a complete unequivocal and unconditional accession to India is manifested in their pressing demand for freeing the accession from any conditions and artificial barriers such as Article 370 of Indian Constitution.
In my earlier book Unhappy Kashmir - The Hidden Story, while concluding the preface I had said: "An in-depth study of these hidden facts should enable the people in general and policy-makers in particular to learn from past blunders and act timely and decisively to prevent the looming national disaster". Has the purpse been served as I had wished? The present situation may be summed up in a Sanskrit phrase: Yadasthanam pradishtya bhayami. (We are exactly where we were). In fact, the situation has worsened. What happened in Bombay on Black Friday, March 12, 1993, will stay in India's history as a national shame. Nowhere in the world has any city suffered the misfortune of 13 powerful bomb blasts - all in a span of two hours or so. A massive building of critical importance to the country's prestige and economy went up or caved in like nine pins in the explosions of unparalleled destructive power arranged at regular intervals of time and space of a single day. A Friday in the Muslims' fasting month of Ramazan at mid-day time prayers when most of them were in mosques, safe from the dangers of war-scale bomb operations. It started from Ahmedabad, devastated Bombay and brought havoc in Calcutta. As the planning appears alphabetical, one has to keep one's finger crossed as to the fate of D.
These blasts were not a sudden development. In July, 1991, some anti- natinal elements had thrown a sophisticated plastique bomb on a house in Khalse village of coastal Maharashtra. The blast was so strong that it woke up villagers 7km away. The local police said arms spare parts and ammunition were smuggled along the coast and were assembled in an illegal jungle factory. Immediateldy afetrwards, Mr. A.R. Antulay, M.P. and a former Chief Minister of Maharashtra brought this incident to the notice of the Home Minister of India. There was neither response nor action. The tragedy of Black Friday has shown how incompetent, inefficient, impotent, indifferent, the Government of India has rendered itself.
Those who have been holdig sway in India since independence have their well-known techniques which include slandering authors whose factual account is inconvenient and ensure that facts are sunk down by chorus of denials. Truth alone lives has comeo to mean that what is allowed to live will automatically become the truth. Our ruling establishment as also dominating media men are having a fixed mindset in regard to Kashmir. Neither the ground reality nor any amount of genuine arguments affect this mindset even slightly. When Dr. Johnson was told that the doctrine of Bishop Berkley, that matter was non-existent and that everything in the Universe was merely ideal, was only ingenious sophistry but that it was impossible to refute it, Dr. Johnson with great alacrity answered striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone till he rebounded from it saying, I refute it thus.
Author:Shri Dinanath Raina
|
